All Male Congressional Panel Makes Nationwide Decision on Abortion

Here we go again. An all-male House Judiciary committee just advanced a bill that bans abortion nationwide after a woman’s 20th week. The six Republicans on the panel were led by Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ). I’m trying to figure out which I’m more incensed about; another abortion ban proposition, or the fact it was pushed through by an all-male Republican-weighted panel. I’ll go with Door #3, Monty – both.

Thankfully, something positive can be found in most every situation. This action will abruptly wake up the women who might be taking power naps in between the plethora of legislative assaults against their reproductive rights. And let me tell you – we don’t like to be awakened this way, no. We get ruffled. We get fierce.

Four of the all-male panel were Democrats, and they did the right thing and voted it down. Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Ted Deutch (D-Fla) voiced opposition about an abortion debate taking place with no women…

“It is totally out of order for us to determine a medical question like this under the guise of acting as members of the very vital House Judiciary Committee,” Conyers said. “No good has ever come from an all-male committee deciding the law about a woman’s body. This is not appropriate.”Deutch went a step further and said watching a group of men make medical decisions on behalf of women is ‘hard for people to take.'”

So, here’s more positive to counter the outrage.The bill will most likely be shot down, given –it’s unconstitutional and violates the federal laws passed in 1973 when women won the right to legal abortion via Roe v. Wade. This new legislation does not allow for rape, fetal anomalies or incest. But to many Republicans, the U.S. Constitution doesn’t count on this one.

The six men who voted in favor of this restrictive bill called the, Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, decided a fetus can feel pain after the 20th week, even though it’s not been proven. They are among the infamous men who ‘know’ all about women’s bodies like Todd Akin who defines legitimate rape, and how a woman’s body can reject impregnation by a rapist, or like Rush Limbaugh, who knows about how the Pill works, and how you have to take one before having sex. Idiots.

I have to continue to raise questions like: Are these Republican men introducing anti-choice/anti-women bills because they:

1. Hate women and are trying to silence them via stripping their reproductive rights?2. Are trying to ‘kill time,’ to earn a paycheck, because they can’t think of anything productive to do for the American people?

3. Or because they are trying to make names for themselves as Right-Wing extremists for the 2014 elections? (Because look how it helped Akin, Romney, Ryan… in 2012)

Um, I’ll go with Door #4, Monty – All of the above.

Rep. Franks says he thinks the bill has a good chance of passing, given the Gosnell murder case. Well, can’t say we didn’t see that one coming. What Franks fails to understand is that we are not talking about murder – we’re talking about a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body, and the Gosnell case actually reiterated the crucial need for safe, legal and affordable abortions.

Trent Franks dug his hole a little deeper when he said: Late-term abortions “have been happening hundreds of times every single day for decades in America,” he said. “Those who incomprehensibly call trying to change this a ‘war on women’ overlook the fact that roughly half of these babies that are so torturously killed each day are just little tiny women.“

Little tiny women? Are you…wait, hold on…. Okay, I’m back. Had to count to 10 several times – is he serious? I’m afraid so. And yet I’m grateful to have this platform to get out stories like this, so we can remember these misogynists in 2014. Yes, we’ll remember these men, along those who voted against the Violence Against Women Act, and the lawmakers who introduced over 600 anti-choice bills this year. Oh heck – we’ll throw in all the politicians who voted against gun background checks. We’ll remember them all, and the millions of our tax dollars they’ve wasted on introducing these hateful unconstitutional bills.

Last bit of good news. Once again, Republicans have revved up the Liberal/Progressive/Democratic engines that won us the last two presidential elections – 2014 can’t come soon enough.